It’s a race that sees the leading juvenile hurdlers in training do battle and the Triumph Hurdle has been the stepping stone for some big name performers down the years that have gone on to bigger and better things. The sole Grade 1 contest for four-year-olds at the Cheltenham Festival, the Triumph Hurdle is a fascinating contest on day four of the meeting and we take a look back at the recent history of the event and pick out some of the key trends why trying to find the winner.
Starting Price
It’s a real mixed bag when looking at the starting price of the last 20 winners of the event, as while six winners have been favourites there have been five double-figured priced winners of the Triumph Hurdle. Arguably the most well-known winner of the Triumph was dual Grand National hero Tiger Roll, who was a 10/1 winner way back in 2014, while Countrywide Flame was a shock 33/1 winner for John Quinn in 2012. Willie Mullins has been a more dominant figure recently and saddled three of the last four winners with both Vauban (2022) and Lossiemouth (2023) being sent off short-priced favourites when landing the prize.
Starting Price Of Triumph Hurdle Winners In Last 20 Years
- Evens to 3/1 – 5 winners
- 100/30 to 6/1 – 7 winners
- 13/2 to 10/1 – 4 winners
- 11/1 to 20/1 – 3 winners
- 22/1+ – 1 winner
Rating
In the last 20 years seven winners of the Triumph Hurdle hadn’t been given an official rating from the handicapper, which includes the legendary Tiger Roll, who stormed to victory in 2014. A lot of this is down to the fact that some of these juveniles have had limited racing over hurdles to warrant being given a mark or are ex-French horses that are yet to be handed a rating by the official handicapper.
Focusing on the 13 winners in the last 20 years that have earned a rating prior to winning the event then the most frequent winner falls in the bracket of 146-150, while there’s only been one winner rated lower than 140 in the last two decades, that being 2008 hero Celestial Halo for Paul Nicholls. The highest-rated duo have been Peace And Co and Defi Du Seuil, who were the dominant juveniles in 2015 and 2017, respectively, and were both rated 155.
Official Rating Of Triumph Hurdle Winners In Last 20 Years
- 135-140 – 3 winners
- 141-145 – 3 winners
- 146-150 – 5 winners
- 151-155 – 2 winners
- 156 – 0 winners
*7 winners had no official rating when winning (Made In Japan, Penzance, Detroit City, Zarkandar, Tiger Roll, Pentland Hills, Burning Victory)
Won Last Time Out
The juvenile division is fascinating in the fact that the four-year-olds can often come on leaps and bounds at the season goes on and with them all having had very few runs then the form can often be hard to assess. This is emphasised by the fact in the last 15 years there have only been ten horses that were winners in their last run before the Triumph Hurdle, while five winners had been beaten in their prep run.
You can often see horses switch from France to the UK & Ireland, so they are often horses with bags of potential and could quite easily improve and sparkle at Cheltenham. Races like the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown, Adonis Juvenile Hurdle at Kempton Park and the Triumph Hurdle trials at Cheltenham can often throw up leading contenders for the Friday curtain-raiser
Last Time Out Winners In Last 15 Years
- Won Last Time Out – 10 winners
- Lost Last Time Out – 5 winners
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